Good Neighbors and a Great Halloween

Gratitude Day Four: I know I've said this before but today I'm super thankful for our neighborhood.

I just went through the photos I took on Halloween and started the process of setting up this year's Children for Children concert (It'll be the 5th Annual Concert!). We had a really fun neighborhood parade and dinner on Halloween before trick-or-treating and we've got this great couple down the street who are converting a beautiful old church into a community center that they said we could use for our Children for Children concert this year. Doing these two things made me so extra thankful for the wonderful people in this neighborhood - people from all over the country, people with different beliefs and lifestyles, people with kids and without, people with all sorts of interests and talents. But what brings everyone together is a belief in community and neighborliness and a love of diversity.

Eliza and I went down to the city council meeting a couple nights ago to support our neighbors in their efforts to convert the old unused church into a community center. I loved seeing so many neighbors get up and speak in support of this project and loved seeing the excitement and loyalty expressed. Permission was granted for the new use of the church and now we'll have a great community center where the strength of our neighborhood can be built-upon.  Here's the little video that was put together about the church - easy to picture our Children for Children concert happening there and making it the biggest and best concert yet!

Here are a few shots of our neighborhood Halloween parade and dinner.

Playing Duck Duck Goose

Playing Red Rover

Enjoying black bean soup (a.k.a. "witch's brew")

And here are our kids, ready to trick-or-treat around the block:

It was the perfect Halloween - super nice weather, lots of fun activities, and just enough candy to make it fun but not leave us with sugar highs for weeks.